That one time Bruce met an angel
by dysprositos
Summary: It wasn't a hard choice to make and it wasn't a hard thing to do. It had seemed logical at the time. Like he was cutting his losses. He'd looked at the equation, he'd done the math, and when he had it all worked out, he saw things weren't in his favor. There was nothing worth living for, and so he wouldn't. There was nothing worth living for, so why was he convinced to come back?


**My beta, irite, is a towering behemoth of betaing efficiency.**

**...perhaps describing someone as a 'behemoth' is not the most flattering...sorry!**

**Warnings for: suicide (don't worry, it's...temporary) and religious irreverence. **

**I do not own The Avengers.**

* * *

"When I was fifteen," Bruce told Tony, eyes fixed on a point just to the right of Tony's head, "I killed myself."

It was several weeks after Loki's ill-fated attempt at world domination, and Bruce and Tony were currently engaged in a project that would, if successful, make cleaning up the city about a thousand times more efficient.

They'd taken a break, though, to dig into the lunch Pepper had had delivered to them. Their conversation had been stilted at first, awkward with attempts to not say anything that might upset the other, which meant avoiding Howard Stark and, although it annoyed Tony, avoiding discussing the Hulk, until somebody had brought up Norse mythology—Thor and Loki, primarily—which had led them to mythology in general. Which had led them, through a complicated, meandering path, to faith, a topic on which Tony had much to say.

Most of it was disparaging.

He'd been well into his tirade when Bruce had interrupted him by blurting out, "I met an angel, once."

"Really?" Tony had asked, clearly humoring him, expecting an amusing story, maybe, or a joke. "When?"

Bruce had shuffled his feet somewhat awkwardly. He hadn't meant to say anything about it, about his 'experience,' but for some reason, every time he talked to Tony, he ended up saying way more than he wanted to. But this was something that had been on his mind a lot lately, given what had happened with the Chitauri and Loki. And now he'd opened his stupid mouth.

So Bruce had answered, albeit reluctantly, "When I was fifteen, I killed myself."

And now, Tony's eyebrows were creeping up, the half-smile on his face fading rapidly. "That's kind of a recurring theme in your life, isn't it?" He sounded flip, but there was a current of legitimate concern underneath it. It was what made Bruce keep going.

He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. "Maybe."

And then, because he knew Tony wouldn't rest until he'd heard the whole story, Bruce dove in.

* * *

It wasn't a hard choice to make, and it wasn't a hard thing to do. It had seemed logical, at the time. Like he was cutting his losses. He'd looked at the equation, he'd done the math, and when he had it all worked out, he saw things weren't in his favor. There was nothing worth living for, and so he wouldn't.

Twin cuts through the radial arteries in his wrists, and he was done.

He did not remember dying. He _did _remember lying in the dry bathtub, staring at the soap scum in the grout and feeling his blood soak into his clothes. He remember feeling nauseated from the smell. He'd always hated the smell of blood. He vaguely remembered losing consciousness.

But he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and that he did not remember.

His next memory after losing consciousness was the angel.

Bruce did not believe in angels. He did not _disbelieve _in them, either. At fifteen, he had more pressing things to worry about than the supernatural forces that may or may not exist in the universe. Like, how to avoid getting the crap beaten out of him at school. Or at home. Or just in general. He was more or less indifferent to anything more than his own survival, than to making it from point A to point B with the least amount of trouble.

He was thus somewhat surprised when he met an angel. Not because he thought it was out of the realm of possibility—even at fifteen, he knew the universe was infinite, and could thus contain all things imaginable—but because he'd never really taken the time to think about angels.

The angel did not offer Bruce its name, and it didn't occur to Bruce to ask. He wasn't sure if angels had names. In fact, he was only sure of two things. One, that he had died and two, that this was, in fact, an angel before him.

It was tall, perhaps seven feet, and shrouded in a glow that concealed all of the proportions of its body entirely. If it had a sex, it wasn't evident. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the angel was almost incomprehensibly beautiful, although Bruce could discern almost nothing about it. No features beyond its size, nothing about its appearance aside from 'vaguely humanoid.'

But not human. He could hear the wings, even as he could not see them, shifting and rustling in a non-existent breeze. The air was, to him, completely still, and the ground under his feet was utterly featureless. Everything was bathed in white light, so bright that everything appeared to be hidden in fog.

Which may have been troubling, but the angel was, in addition to being beautiful and vaguely human, exuding an aura of safety and peace. Bruce could not remember a time he had felt more at ease.

But then, he was dead. Nothing, nobody, could hurt him, now, so what was there to fear?

"You are young," the angel said, interrupting his train of thought. Bruce couldn't see its face clearly—the light prevented it—but its voice sounded sad.

"I guess," Bruce replied, looking down, around, anywhere but at the creature in front of him. He saw that he was naked, that the cuts on his arms had, in this place, already healed to rough, pink scars. He felt suddenly ashamed of them, ashamed of himself, especially in front of this gorgeous creature.

Well, he'd been inadequate in life. He could hardly expect the afterlife to be different.

"This did not need to happen," the angel said, equally as mournful as before.

And wasn't it just like Bruce, to cause pain to something this _ethereal_. He never could do anything right, not even here, it seemed. He muttered, "I'm sorry."

"It is not your fault."

Bruce didn't know who else could be to blame—he'd been the one with the razor in his hand—but he shrugged awkwardly in agreement. One did not, he felt, disagree with angels.

"And yet...the world has need of you, Robert Bruce Banner."

Except when they said things like that. _That _was something he could disagree with. Hesitantly. "I...don't think so." The world had never seemed to _want _him, let alone _need _him. He was a mistake, an aberration, a fact that had been drilled into him as long as he could remember. A mistake, and a freak. The world did not need him. It needed him exterminated.

"You are wrong. You are young, and do not understand. But you will be a hero."

Bruce snorted, and the sound was loud in the near-silence. "I'm not a hero."

"No," the angel agreed. "But you will be. If you want it to be so."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, glancing around. The white light-fog stretched to the horizon, and yet this huge space seemed empty but for the two of them. He'd always thought the afterlife would be different. More crowded. Well. What did he know?

"I am offering you a second chance."

"No," Bruce answered immediately. He didn't want to go back to his life. He'd just put in the effort, the willpower, to check out. He didn't _want _a second chance. A chance for what? For more of the same? More bruises, more humiliation, more exile? No thanks. He was good. This place seemed just fine for the likes of him.

The angel did not respond for a long time. When it did, it said, "If you are certain. But humanity will perish without you."

At fifteen years old, and as the recent victim of his own suicide, Bruce did not want to listen to some otherworldly creature tell him that the fate of humanity rested on his scrawny, hunched shoulders. It seemed ridiculous. Coercive. He grew angry. "You can't just say something like that and expect me to—"

"I can show you, if you would prefer." And then, without waiting for a reply, it took Bruce's hand.

Bruce blinked in surprise, and then he was looking at what he thought was New York City. He'd never been there, but he'd seen the pictures in school. Except, this wasn't New York as he'd seen it. It was...in ruins. Blackened and burned, the streets crumbling into rubble as nature reclaimed the city. There were no people.

"Where is everyone?" Bruce asked, though he thought that he knew.

"Dead," the angel confirmed. "They will be killed in a war that humanity will be ill-suited to fight."

"_Everyone?_" Bruce asked, incredulous. Almost five billion people, or more, wiped out in one war?

"No," the angel said. "The war will be the first wave, battle after battle that will drive the armies of Earth to ruin. Then will come the disease, carried by the conquering invaders. Within ten years of the first battle, the entirety of the human race will be gone, and the planet will be re-colonized with a new race of beings. They will prefer a drier climate, though, and will have abandoned most of the human cities in favor of constructing their own in Earth's deserts."

Bruce looked around, took in the decrepit skyscrapers, the rusting cars, the sad remnants of his own species. "And I can stop this? _Me_?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his own voice.

The angel nodded once.

It seemed surreal, impossible. Who was he, that he could prevent this from happening? That he could stop, what, an alien invasion? It seemed like a cruel joke, the latest in a long line of them. "I don't...you're lying."

"I am not."

Flat denial, no inflection. And Bruce believed it completely, believed, in fact, the whole scenario the angel had laid out before him. Angels, he felt, did not lie.

His next question, then, was, "Why _me?_"

"Because you are strong, Robert Bruce Banner."

Bruce didn't feel strong. But angels...they didn't lie.

And maybe it was because he was dead, because he was noncorporeal, because he had never expected any of this, but he just let it all wash over him. Through him. And then, he saw in his mind the war that would be fought, the battles, saw the entirety of humanity crumble into nothing.

If this truly was going to happen, then...

"Fine," Bruce mumbled. "Send me back, then." Back to his life, back to being an outcast, to being unwanted and alone. Was it worth this cost to save all of humanity?

"Are you certain? It will not be an easy road."

_It's never been an easy road._

He'd made up his mind. Had, perhaps, had it made up from the moment the angel had spoken. Had he been given a choice, truly? Was this really up to him, or had it all been part of some greater plan? Bruce didn't think he could know. Would even know. All he knew was that he wasn't going to back down from this now. So he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."

"Very well."

* * *

Here, Tony interrupted Bruce. "You're fucking kidding me."

Mildly, Bruce replied, "I know it seems a little...strange." He'd certainly thought so, upon waking up in a white hospital room.

"You're a scientist, you can't honestly believe you met an angel. Angels don't _exist_."

Bruce shrugged. "Who're we to say that? I shouldn't exist. Thor and Loki shouldn't exist. Steve shouldn't exist. The Chitauri? Probably shouldn't exist."

"Yeah, but...that's different. Angels aren't...real. No one's ever seen one."

Bruce raised an eyebrow, and Tony amended, "Okay, no one who wasn't, I don't know, hallucinating or dying or whatever."

"I wasn't dying," Bruce pointed out. "I was dead. I died for two minutes. In the ambulance."

"Doesn't really help your case, buddy." Tony paused, glancing to his left. "If you thought you were on some holy mission from god or whoever, then...what you said on the Helicarrier...why'd you try again?"

Ah. That. "Well...before the accident, I thought that the supersoldier serum...I thought that was it. I thought that was how I was going to fulfill my destiny or whatever. That was how I'd be able to stop the aliens. Which is why I was so sure the serum was right."

He could remember the certainty he'd felt that he was right, that he was doing the right thing, that _this _was what he'd been brought back from the afterlife for.

But then it had gone wrong. And he'd despaired.

"When it _wasn't _right, and I...became what I am, I thought I'd screwed it all up. That I'd not only ruined my own life, but that I'd doomed everyone. I saw the destruction I was capable of, and I thought there was no way I could ever be anything but a threat to humanity. It seemed better to take myself out of the mix." He shook his head. "But I guess that option was taken from me by then." It had, he thought, probably been taken from him when he'd agreed to come back, but he didn't say as much.

Tony looked down, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. "I guess so." Then he looked up. "You don't _really_ believe it was an angel, though? Really? I mean, haven't you read the studies about near death experiences?"

Bruce shrugged again. "Honestly? I never thought too much about it. It was just something that happened." He'd purposely avoided dwelling on, avoided picking it apart. He'd thought if he had, it might have been ruined. That cold logic might eviscerate his reason for living.

And then what would he have had?

Tony shook his head. "Man."

There were several beats of silence, and Tony chewed on his lip, clearly itching to say something. Expecting another diatribe, Bruce prompted him, "What?"

Tony didn't answer for a moment, and when he did, he began slowly, "But...the angel dude or whatever...he was right, right? About the aliens."

Bruce hadn't been expecting _that_. "I guess." He more than 'guessed,' really; this was what he'd been thinking about since the attempted invasion. It had really happened, had really come to pass. And that made the whole experience more real.

He didn't know if that was reassuring or terrifying.

"And he was right about you being crucial to beating them. We couldn't have done it without you."

"...I guess...?" It hadn't been _him_, it had been the Other Guy. The mistake.

But maybe...if he had been 'destined' or whatever to save the world, and the Other Guy was how he was supposed to do it, then the biggest mistake of his life had actually been...fate.

Bruce couldn't decide if what he felt was wonder or nausea. Maybe the two weren't so far removed from one another.

Tony nodded thoughtfully, then shrugged easily. "Whatever. Maybe it happened. But angels? Why did it have to be an _angel_? Why couldn't it have been an omnipotent, soul-rescuing alien or something? Angels are so...sanctimonious. Do-gooder douchebags."

Bruce quirked an eyebrow, glad for his attempt to lighten the situation. "You'd find that easier to believe? The alien?"

"Duh."

"You know, I really, really wonder about you, sometimes."

"You wonder about me? You're the one seeing angels, my friend." His tone was, at worst, gently teasing, and Bruce knew that while Tony might not be a believer, he wasn't going to belittle or dismiss Bruce's experience.

Which was so much more than most people would have done.

Bruce shrugged, one corner of his mouth turned up. "Whatever. Hand me that bag of chips?"

And with that, they went back to their lunch.

* * *

**So, this was written mostly so I could say I'd written something 'supernatural.' Bruce and Tony's thoughts on the supernatural do not reflect my own, and I profess no belief or disbelief in anything presented in the story.**

**Thanks for reading! Review if you're so inclined.**


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